‘‘Petro-texts, plants, and people in the Anthropocene: the dark green’’

Exploitation and Conservation

“…Heather I. Sullivan, in her paper discussing oil cultures in text, views that melange as an up-for-grabs substance that acts as a surrogate for oil (Sullivan, 2019). Thus, the Harkonnens' dirty mission of hoarding wealth through predominating the production of melange signifies petroleum capitalism with a destructive impact on nature.…”

The Past Erased, the Future Stolen: Lignite Extractivism as Germany’s Trope for the Anthropocene

“…Environmental historian Rolf Peter Sieferle describes the "earth's biosphere" as "a powerful solar energy system," with coal as its "subterranean forest," a source of stored energy that is, however, finite (Sieferle 2001, pp. 1, 184; for more on the vegetal origin of fossil fuels see (Sullivan 2019)). Compared with other fuels such as hard coal or natural gas, the energy content of lignite is low, averaging only around 35%, and its inefficient combustion makes it the most polluting fossil fuel "with the highest CO 2 emissions" (Reitzenstein et al 2020, p. 151) and the most deleterious ecological consequences and effects on the climate.…”

“…has enabled classical industrial, urban and economic development" (as she quotes physicist Jacob Lund Fisker, and as is certainly true for Germany's rise to economic powerhouse), has led to a "dearth of oil in contemporary fiction" (Yaeger 2011, p. 324). Meanwhile "Petroculture Studies" and the genre of petrofiction, introduced by Amitav Ghosh in 1992 (Yaeger 2011, p. 325;Ghosh 2014) have become more established (Ghosh 2014;Sullivan 2019). In his "Short History of Oil Cultures," Frederick Buell explores the many entanglements of energy history, in particular how "oil-electric capitalism" has developed and defined "itself culturally against the previous era of coal capitalism" and "is signifanctly related to the emergence of modernist culture"; he identifies "two recurring motifs, exuberance and catastrophe, as they play out in a wide range of literary texts and popular enthusiasms" (Buell 2012, p. 273) and explores how the availability of fossil fuel energy literally energizes and "electrifies" people (all classes), and injects their lives with speed and dynamism that translates into narrative strategies and is paralleled in the emergence of new media such as film, while coal extraction has always stood for the "exploitation and environmental immiseration of the coal-capitalist working class" (Buell 2012, p. 289).…”